Easter Sunrise!

 Trish and I are at The Swag, The Great Country Inn of the Smokies, where I am telling stories for about ten days. This put us here through the Easter weekend and we had a sunrise service here for guests and staff this morning.

We left our lodging at 6:30 am ready to walk about a half mile up to Gooseberry Knob where the service was to be held.  We were departing when it was Nautical Dawn, we could see the horizon but there was not enough light yet to be able to read.

By the time we got up to the knob, we were approaching Civil Dawn, when we could begin to be able to read the printed program for the service. The eastern sky was flowing orange-red all the way from north to south.

Then the sun popped and the whole world was aglow.  What a beautiful reason to have gotten up on this glorious day.  We watched and watched until the world was bright.

Back down at the Swag House for breakfast, we never told the late sleepers what they really missed; we didn’t want to spoil the enjoyment of the extra rest they had enjoyed!

Rest Stop in Williamsburg

 Last week Trish and I were in an intensive week long workshop in Connecticut. When we finished and headed to North Carolina, we had a day to stop somewhere and rest.  We stopped for the night in Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia, one of our favorite places.

We like to stay in one of the historic Colonial houses right on Duke of Gloucester Street and this time we were in Brick House Tavern.  This way we can walk all over the Historic District right from our room.  It makes the whole time there better.

After moving in, we headed out for some exercise.  We enjoyed stopping at the blacksmiths’ shop, right next door to our lodging.

In down the street we visited the dyeing and weaving house and watched weavers making various samples while they told us about what they were doing.

One of the nicest things about this time of year is that the tulips and other spring flowers were in bloom.  We wandered through gardens until it was time for our dinner reservation.

Even though this was a short one-night visit, it left us rested to start the next week’s travel and work.

A Hard Springtime

 This year the storms of springtime have been especially hard on the island.  We seem to have another high tide storm every week or so.  The surf is extremely high and ocean overwash is repeated.

With every storm centered high tide, we seem to have ocean over wash and the road to the Hatteras ferry is closed until it is put back together again. This is actually the road with ocean overwash.

The project underway now is to fill about eight hundred giant sandbags and use them to rebuild the base of the dune system where the island is very narrow at the north end.  It is fascinating to watch this process as the sand is pumped with water into the bags and then it drains out leaving them sand filled. 

Finally, it is hoped, the sand will fill in and the dune will hold once again. It is an endless process that happens over and over again.

Why is this happening?  Two things seem to be in play.  One is that barrier islands naturally migrate from north to south.  This is all at the extreme north end of the island where the island gradually gets smaller.  In fact, more than forty years ago, the present road was relocated totally moving it west to where it is today.  What we need is to move the ferry landing south and let nature be in charge.  Meanwhile, at the south end of the island, the beach is wide and the dunes are abundant.

The other factor is play is, of course, sea level rise.  We watch and wonder whether all this is cyclical or is an unchangeable part of global warming.  Still…we live here.

Hints of Spring

 We had the first real hints of springtime on the island when we were at home this week.  They are called blooms and the promise of blooms!

The hyacinths were mostly finished when we got home.  But, their lovely smell still filled our house with cut ones and we admired the rest.

The little salad garden I planted on our last time at home has come up well.  There are watermelon radishes, Tom Thumb lettuces, Nantes carrots, beets, mesculun lettuces,  Bibb lettuces, Swiss chard, and Parisian round carrots.

The daffodils are just beginning to pop out.  They will be in full bloom when we get home from this trip.  We picked a bunch for Leslie at Books to be Red since they are her favorite flowers and we will not be home to enjoy them.

The perennials look great as they come back to life and all the annuals I had started under lights got set out.  We look forward to our next trip home as this is the time things really SPRING to life!

Sunrise Beach Ride

 Trish and I got home from Texas to discover that the first restaurants are beginning to open for the season. Just up the street a hundred yards or so from our house the Pony Island, serving breakfast only, was slated to open yesterday. 

So, we decided that the thing for us to do was take the Jeep out to the beach for sunrise at 7:18 and then come back for breakfast at the Pony Island before a day of spring yard work.

We got there (less than a mile from our house) just in time for the morning show to begin.

Sometimes we see dolphins when we ride on the beach, but, today it was only the glowing sunrise.

There are so many beautiful reasons to live in Ocracoke Island.  Going out to breakfast by way of the ocean sunrise is just one of them!

Dallas Arboretum

 On our way to the Texas Festival, Trish and I ended up with an extra travel day.  So, we decided to stop over in Dallas where we could spend a day at the Dallas Arboretum and Botanical Garden.  This was the perfect time of year for such a visit.

While the hyacinths were just finishing, the tulips and daffodils are in the prime of their bloom season.  We learned that they plant about half a million bulbs here each year and we think we saw all of them.

It was a beautiful partially cloudy and comfortably warm day.  We ended up spending  nearly five hours there in all.  The total garden is sixty-six acres, all beautifully landscaped and perfectly enhanced by the spring bulbs.

The color blends were very carefully done and showed a lot of artistic thought. Still, you never know what it will look like until they actually come up and bloom.  This must be even more exciting to see by those who did the plantings.

Something we had never seen anywhere before were the walls of flowers where slanting pots had been arranged in ascending rows up a perpendicular wall so that as the plants grew they covered the entire wall.  These were really fascinating.

Here we are standing in front of one of those walls.

As we left, we knew one thing, we will both recommend this place and we, ourselves, will come here again.

Selma and Kathryn

 Kathryn Tucker Windham was one of my greatest all-time friends in the storytelling world and in life itself.  We worked together for well over thirty years until her death in 2011 at age 93.

 This beautiful photo by Tom Raymond was taken of us at one of Kathryn’s last appearances at the National Storytelling Festival.

Kathryn and I both grew up being taught that, before you get out of bed in the first day of each month, you yell “rabbit rabbit” for good luck during the coming month.  She even organized the Rabbit Club, a group of Selma ladies who had breakfast together in the first day of each month. We would check on one another later that day by telephone to be sure that we had fulfilled the superstition.

On our way from LaGrange to the Tejas Storytelling Festival, we pass through Selma.  So, on this trip, we decided to stop for a visit at Kathryn’s grave. In her lifetime she loved to visit and even have picnics in the old Live Oak Cemetery where there are amazing sculptures and markers.

However, she did not want to be buried there.  She thought it was too ornate for the simplicity of who she was.  When she died, she joined her husband, Amasa, and her daughter, Kitti, is the New Live Oak Cemetery just down the road a bit.

As Trish and I stood there and remembered so much about Kathryn, we thought about “rabbit rabbit.” Suddenly we noticed, there at the base of the headstone, a good sized scattering of rabbit pellets!  They must have been delivered to her in the first day of March!  We knew that all is well.

Azalea Storytelling Festival

 We have just finished the 28th Azalea Storytelling Festival in LaGrange, Georgia, along with Regi Carpenter, Paul Strickland, and Bil Lepp.

Bil and I arrived early in the week so that we could do a variety of school and community events before the actual Festival weekend started.

Here I got to spend time with all the second graders at Hillcrest Elementary School.

When Friday evening arrived, we were joined by Paul and Regi while the crowd was welcomed to Callaway Auditorium on the LaGrange College Campus by College President, Susanna Baxter.

Susanna and our son Doug mostly grew up together and it is a real joy to reconnect with her here as she hosts the Azalea Festival.

As is true with most Festivals, this one has cultivated its own faithful audience over the years and we know that we will see many of the same story lovers when we come here each year.   It is one of those times when we remember why we keep on doing this!

In addition, this Festival was very special to me this year as it was the first launch of my new book, How They Linger, seventeen stories about unforgettable people who ought to be remembered. It was a good place for its coming out!

We will be back in LaGrange in July where I conduct a week-long workshop each year.